Chris Cooper's Blog, page 95

The Northman, Alexander Skarsgård and Your New Viking Gym Clients

Imagine having Alexander Skarsgård pitching your gym to prospective clients.

Wouldn’t that be sweet?

Well, it’s actually happening right now.

Here’s how to capitalize.

“The Northman” is now out in movie theatres, and the web is full of articles explaining how Skarsgård got jacked for the role. Here’s a quick survey:

“Alexander Skarsgård Gained 20 Pounds of Muscle”

“Alexander Skarsgård Got Absolutely jacked for ‘The Northman’—Here’s How He Did It”

“How Alexander Skarsgård Transformed Into a Ripped Viking for ‘The Northman’”

If you search for “Northman fitness” or anything similar, you’ll get pages of this stuff.

Right now, people really, really want to know how Skarsgård achieved his .

And you have the answer, right?

So provide it for local people. I’ll even give you a headline:

“How [YOUR CITY] People Can Train Like The Northman.”

300: Rise of Intensity?

Remember “300?”

It came out in 2006, and the physiques of Gerard Butler (Leonidas) and the Spartan heroes were linked to functional fitness and high-intensity workouts through Mark Twight and Rob MacDonald of Gym Jones.

That was great news for anyone who had barbells instead of pec-deck machines.

I’m not sure if “The Northman” will hit the fitness community as hard as Leonidas’s spear, but right now people want to know how Skarsgård changed his physique. And his trainer, Magnus Lygdbåck, is the man of the hour in the media.

The exact training plan? It’s not really that relevant. Add muscle, stabilize and strengthen the shoulders to handle lots of ax swinging, blah-blah-blah. Great coaches could write the program in their sleep.

I’ll mention that photos from the movie show Skarsgård isn’t really that “ripped.” He just looks bigger, and his trainer reported he was eating 3,700 calories a day to add muscle. Alexander has abs, but he certainly didn’t achieve Wolverine/Hugh Jackman levels of body fat. Unlike Weapon X, The Northman has pecs that appear to be free of veins. But, to be fair, he’s usually covered in a lot of blood—so who knows how ripped Skarsgård actually is.

The point: Whenever the media focuses on fitness, you have a chance to capitalize by sharing your knowledge. Ride the wave and be an expert. Connect people’s interest to your services and solutions.

I won’t use a bearded ax to beat this to death. I’ll just give you a three-step plan.

The Northman’s Media Plan

1. Write a blog with this title: “How [YOUR CITY] People Can Train Like The Northman.” Talk about training basic principles and how you solve this problem: “I want to look like The Northman.” Add a small dose of reality—this isn’t a six-week challenge—but be sure to tell people that you know exactly how to get the results people want. Share the blog on social media.

2. Create a series of about five movement videos and release them on YouTube and social as “Top 5 Tips to Train Like a Viking.” Skarsgård used battle ropes, kettlebell halos and kettlebell Bulgarian split squats, for example. You aren’t tied to those, of course, but battle ropes slay on Instagram.

3. Create another blog: “3 Viking Workouts.” Put together three simple workouts that you’d recommend for anyone who wants a taste of Norse mead. Then tell them to book a consultation to talk about a personalized plan.

4. Bonus—Write this article: “Why You Shouldn’t Eat 3,700 Calories a Day to Look Like The Northman.” You and I both know a 3,700-calorie diet likely isn’t going to make a person “ripped.” But the average person doesn’t. Explain how nutrition affects muscle and body fat, then tell people to book a consultation to talk about a personalized plan.

And so on. If you get a response, go further.

You can apply a simple plan like this anytime celebrities and fitness pop into the news.

Remember: The articles in Vanity Fair and GQ won’t actually help people get results. No one’s going to replicate Skarsgård’s delts in the living room over the next two weeks.

But your coaching can actually help them accomplish their goals, and mainstream media is taking care of promotion for you. All you have to do is connect the clickbait to the real solution: your coaching.

The post The Northman, Alexander Skarsgård and Your New Viking Gym Clients appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Who’s Actually Joining Gyms: What the Data Says

Mike (00:01):

Who’s buying gym memberships these days? Soldiers and hardcore athletes, soccer parents, someone else? The answer is critical for gym owners and Chris Cooper has it. Welcome to another edition of Two-Brain Radio.

Chris (00:14):

So joining me today is Nathan Holiday and, Nathan, welcome back to Two-Brain Radio, man.

Nathan (00:19):

Thanks man. Appreciate you for sure.

Chris (00:22):

Yeah. So before we got on, Nathan and I were talking about like, there’s always eight different topics we wanna talk about. And so we have a hard time reigning it in, but over one of our last conversations, we were talking about avatars and people coming into the gym. And I think everybody listening to this podcast intrinsically knows that we’re not seeing like CrossFit Games athletes coming into the gym, but Nathan actually has some data on that. And so today we’re gonna answer the question who actually is coming into the gym. How do we know that? And what does that mean for our programming, for our service delivery and even for our pricing?

Nathan (01:00):

Yeah. So a little bit of background, you know, the map. So if anybody is listening familiar with the Level Method, you know that big map we have, it’s all the colorful thing for levels. Now we had our first edition of the map up to about 2019, and then we revamped all of the map data for 2.0 based on the data that we had then. So we kind of spread out the levels and made it a little bit easier. So what I’m gonna be referencing now comes from last month and it’s from the new data that we have. And I don’t wanna dive so much into the numbers and the details, but by seeing like the actual numbers, you can see where people fall. And we had about, about 13, 12, 12 and a half thousand data points of people that have complete overall levels.

Nathan (01:50):

They’re completely up to date. They’re active in the system. They’re not old, they’re not like old members and out of those numbers, for yellow and orange, 68% of people were in yellow and orange. So it’s a vast majority. And again, it’s kind of difficult unless you’re familiar with the level method to understand what yellow and orange is, but yellow and orange is like, you don’t really have a strict pull-up yet. You’re a beginner. You’re like very much in the early stages. And you’re kind of working up and building your skill sets, but almost 70% of people that are coming through your doors are in this zone. Now to kind of compare it to where are the high levels, the upper levels. So from brown to red, now brown is someone that is, you know, we classically consider brown as RX.

Nathan (02:39):

Now, there are still some things that you don’t do as a brown athlete, you know, up to black and then red, you would do more like, you know, stringing muscle-ups and these sorts of things, but between brown and red, 6%. So this is, you know, a tiny fraction of people. And when you look at red, it’s like 0.3% or something. I have the numbers here, hold on, lemme look it up. 0.2% for red. And then for black is 1.6%. So 2%. And again, I don’t want to go diving into these numbers, but you can just get just, you know, you can tell from a high level where these numbers fall, and the single highest level, like, so out of all the levels, there’s one level that is obviously the highest like that has the highest percentage of people in it. And that’s yellow twp.

Nathan (03:27):

And yellow two is about 12% of people. Now, you know, in yellow, you have 37% in yellow, only. So in just yellow. And if anybody’s familiar with the level method, you know, yellow is a beginner, like this is a beginner, this is someone that’s coming in. They don’t really have a background. They’re not gonna move well and you have to control their journey. And by seeing these levels, I can see someone’s strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes people come in, they’re really strong, but that they lack a lot of other things, or it might be flipped, their aerobic, or ventilation or their breathing stuff is really good, but then they’re lacking in other things. So it averages out, but yeah, 6% brown to red and 70% yellow to orange.

Chris (04:13):

So 68% of the people coming in are what the level method would qualify as beginners. Like what are paint us a little bit of a picture here? Like what can they do and what can they not do yet?

Nathan (04:25):

So let me pull up the map so I can just give you real numbers here. So for upper body pull as an example, you have at orange three. So at the highest orange, orange three, a male is doing one strict pull-up and a female is doing one strict chin-up. OK. So that is that’s orange three. At yellow three. You’re looking at things like, a chin over bar hold for men. So five seconds chin over bar hold, and then scap pull-ups on a tempo for females. So again, beginners, we look at deadlift, another one. So for yellow three for men, it’s like 155 for eight reps, right? So you can kinda get an idea. On rings. So rings is a category, at yellow three, you’re doing for men a 15 second ring support hold or a five second support hold. But like, again, when we look at yellow two as the highest, that’s the one that has the most, the males are gonna be front squatting 95 for eight and 65 for eight for females. So you can just get an idea right away. Like this person is beginner, right? They’re not gonna be doing RX weights. They’re not even gonna be close to RX weights and you’re gonna have to scale ’em down. And the level method just helps everybody scale down to an appropriate level for them.

Chris (05:52):

So this is two thirds of the people coming into your gym, and we’re gonna define like what kind of gyms use level method here in a moment, but it’s mostly the people listening to this podcast. So if you’re listening, this applies to you. You’re saying like the high end they’re doing like a 155 dead left, or like one pull-up or they could do a 15 second like ring support. What about the low end? Like can they do anything?

Nathan (06:18):

So like yellow one, if you look at yellow one, there, it’s just entry level. So for upper body pull, they’re doing a five second for men, a five second dead hang hold.

Nathan (06:29):

Hanging. And then for females at yellow, just straight yellow, it’s eight ring rows. And it’s, you know, if you do ring rows, you can make ’em harder or easier. But the idea for this level is just to get success, you know, so you can adjust it as needed. But yeah, you’re looking at, let’s see, let’s find one, like a row, the rowing assessment, it’s only a six minute continuous. So again, it’s just like, just try to kind of checking the box, making sure someone’s getting success as they go up, for squat endurance, it’s 15 air squats to a 16 inch box in one set. So again, kind of vague in what the parameters of how you, if it’s meeting the requirements or the standards, but we’re doing that on purpose. So there’s a little bit of leeway, a little bit of buffer for somebody,

Chris (07:21):

But in general, like what a gym owner should take from this is the person that’s coming in, can probably do a range here of between 15 squats to a 16 inch box, right? Like above knee height for most people without stopping, they can row for six minutes at a minimal pace without stopping. And at best they can probably do about a 155 deadlift, a 15 second ring support, you know? Right. Like that’s two thirds of new clients coming into your gym.

Nathan (07:55):

It’s the vast majority. And this is like over and over. Like, you have the people that have a background in fitness and they come in, but again, as we’re going more and more, that percentage is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. And it’s becoming more normal people that are like, Hey, I’m here and I wanna do some stuff. And they’re a little nervous about being thrown in. And then when you go through the assessments, you’re like, oh, I could do 15 air squats to a 16 inch box. It’s like, no problem, you know? And so they can see. OK. Yeah. But it’s just truly beginners.

Chris (08:25):

Really interesting to see. Now I know that you’ve just started tracking data on this stuff because, you know, when level method was set up, it was a fitness program, but it has a lot of like, you know, interesting data that can help a business too. And that’s why we’re talking about this. Do you think, like even without a data set, do you think that this has changed over the last five to 10 years?

Nathan (08:50):

I don’t think so. Cause I mean, we ran in the beginning, so map 1.0 was harder. So it was like way more people were clumped into white and yellow, like way back into white and yellow. And when I had my gym, like 2016, when we really started pushing this out and like testing everything, the vast majority of people were still in the yellow, but it was so much clump that we realized we needed to spread it out. And that’s really why we did that. So if you, if we have, like heat maps right on where people will get bottlenecked and in that 1,0 there were just so many people bottlenecked in these different places. And that was the reason why we kind of bumped it out. It was it’s counterintuitive. You know, I come from a background of like, oh, I’m a, you know, athlete. And like thinking to myself, oh, most people are gonna be able to do these things, but it’s just not the case. You know, most people, we have to give them a range and we have to get them success on these things.

Chris (09:49):

Very interesting. OK. Well, let’s talk about the business implications here. So obviously, maybe we’ll start with onboarding and we’ll work our way backward to marketing if that’s OK. When you’re onboarding new clients and you’re building your onboarding program, then, knowing that at least two thirds of the people coming into your gym are barely able to do a box squat to a box or at best might be able to do, you know, a front squat with a bit of weight on it. How should you set up your onboarding process so that most of the people are served by it.

Nathan (10:22):

So we provide a template essentially of three to five sessions and this really adjusts, people can make changes however they want. But the whole idea is the very first step of anybody’s journey is to assess where they are. Because without the assessment, I can’t have handles, I don’t know what someone’s strengths and weaknesses are. I might be able to get like insight when I see them do one workout, but that’s only a tiny snapshot. It’s like a tiny little microcosm of their fitness. They might be really good at what I’m seeing. And I’m like, oh yeah, that person’s pretty, any coach’s experience is they see someone like, oh, that guy’s probably pretty fit. And then something else comes up and they can’t do it at all. Right. So what we need to do first is to assess them, to get a good well-rounded picture of where they are.

Nathan (11:11):

And so that’s really what the onboarding is for us is we’re introducing them to fitness and we’re showing them like, look, there’s a structure here and there’s a method and we can kind of walk you through this at the end of this, we’ll have your levels. But I have to just say that it’s not like, we’re not testing this person. We’re not like we’re gonna max you out. We’re just getting you on. Right. Just getting you on where like just to get an idea. So that, cuz there’s 10 years in front of you, you know, or 15 or 20 years, if you have a client for the long term, it’s not like we gotta maximize today only, we’re thinking, OK, where what’s the starting point and where are we coming? Where are we going? So we have three and five sessions to kind of get everybody up to speed, teach philosophy.

Nathan (11:59):

And this is pretty standard. I think most people are doing some sort of onboarding like that with the goal to ramp them into class. And that’s the same thing for us. We’re looking to provide a structure, show them that there’s a difference like, oh, OK. I can see where I am. I know what’s going on. I’m not gonna be surprised. And when I go into class, I know I’m gonna be doing a workout that’s to my level. Right. It’s like, even though there’s six levels. I know, OK. I’m gonna be doing yellow. So I don’t have to be worried about all these higher things where normal in a classic environment, the coach has to individually scale the person. And it can be for some people that they don’t necessarily like that attention up front. Like if I’m a beginner, I don’t wanna be pinpointed. And like all eyes on me as I’m getting scaled. Right. It’s like, I just kinda wanna, OK. I’m doing yellow. Cool. You know, it lowers the pressure a little bit.

Chris (12:57):

All right, man. That’s good. So, backing up one step, let’s talk about recruiting new clients. Now this data does it lend itself to building avatars? And the reason I ask is that one of the most effective things that we teach in ramp up is to clearly to identify three avatars of who your ideal clients are and then market to them. Instead of just taking a shotgun approach to advertising to everyone. Can we build an avatar outta this data that you’re sharing with us?

Nathan (13:28):

The avatar is like a beginner. Now you can have an avatar based on goal, right? Like based on what somebody wants. And that’s really like, I wanna lose weight? Do I wanna gain strength? Do I wanna do these things? So what we generally recommend like a no sweat intro right. Or something where somebody’s coming in. But we couple that with what we call a basic success plan. So in the initial touchpoint, whether that’s, I mean, even a zoom. So if someone doesn’t, if they don’t wanna come in for a no sweat intro, we could do a zoom like success plan, and it’s just building out a game plan for them. Now we’ve we call them pathways to power. This is a Tony Robbins thing. Like he calls pathways of power. And this is an avatar.

Nathan (14:16):

The pathway to power is an avatar. And it’s a formula. It more importantly than just defining the avatar. It’s a formula for the avatar. Now what you’re gonna find when you do a lot of success plans over time is there’s like three or four things that people want, like always. And that’s where we can kind of clump them into what we’re gonna recommend to them. Right? So that’s where the formula comes in. So the avatar is important, but it’s really like as I come in, I wanna lose weight. I wanna get prepared for something. I want to get healthy. And by knowing what somebody wants and then almost more importantly, knowing why they want it. So what’s the underlying purpose, I can, as a coach, I can connect a lot of my communication to that thing. When I see them in the gym and we have a whole system for the way that we do that. So coaches can actually see all clients’ success plans and kind of know like, OK, this person has kids and they wanna be a good role model for their kids. And that’s their primary why, even though they wanna lose 20 pounds. And so in class, you’d have to have a relationship. You wouldn’t just go up up to someone randomly be like, you wanna get fit for your kids. Like you better work harder or whatever, but it’s like, you kind of have an idea of why someone’s there, you know?

Chris (15:30):

All right. So, Nathan and I set up this interview February 14th, like, six weeks ago. And that’s just how busy he is because level method is booming and for good reason. But while we were waiting to set this up, two clients walked into catalyst and said, we’re here to do level method. Now this had never happened. And you know, for, I think at least three years now, right, Nathan, I’ve been saying that level method is like one of the best things that you can do for retention for your gym, but it’s never been an acquisition program until now. Catalyst has been, kind of shut down for two years. So this might have happened before. I’ve got level method on my sign and most people don’t have that yet. But Nathan, what I’d love to hear from you is like, you know, these new people who are attracted to level method, they definitely fall right in that yellow category. They’re perfect avatar for me. But CrossFit home office is saying something completely different. And you know, they did this affiliate round table or whatever they call it. And they said that our marketing for affiliates is going to be to promote the Games more and that the bigger the Games get, the more clients CrossFitters are going to attract. Does that align with the data that you’re seeing or what’s just like your knee jerk reaction to that?

Nathan (16:46):

Like, I think that the kind of people that are gonna see the Games and then be like, Ooh, I gotta find a CrossFit is not the average person. It’s not like the normal person in the yellow to orange range. I mean, maybe not so much in the higher oranges, cuz they’re kind of maybe have a little bit of a background, but the yellows, the yellow athletes, they’re gonna see that. And they’re not gonna think I wanna do all that. Some of them might, there might be some percentage, but most are gonna be intimidated by that. Right. And so for us, we’re thinking, OK, how do we give the beginner a roadmap and attract those sorts of people? Cause I mean, if you look at percentage wise, how many more people are there that are a little intimidated, they don’t really know what they’re doing.

Nathan (17:29):

They’re looking for structure and they’re looking for safety. They’ve heard all the stuff. This is just more of the same in my mind from CrossFit in terms of like the Games was a big, it worked in the beginning to kind of get at all of the word out. Right. But then what ended up happening is it slowly morphed and the perception for the regular person was that it’s extreme or that it’s crazy or that there’s like, so there, you know, people doing all these muscle ups and they’re lifting all this weight and people immediately think to themselves, I mean, I would say the majority of people think I can’t do that or I can never do that now that’s, you know, you might think, well, that person shouldn’t be doing fitness, but it’s the opposite. You want that person to do fitness and then slowly over time to morph their thinking to see that it’s actually possible if you go based on progressions.

Nathan (18:17):

So if I’m just jumping right to the, the highest level stuff, it feels impossible. But when I plug into a system and I see where I am and I can look down the line and I’d be like, OK, all those people that I’m seeing on TV are in the red zone. And so it’s gonna take me a good amount of time to ramp up and that’s just kind of, it just helps people get a better understanding of reality right. Of the reality of it. So I don’t think that that’s, I don’t think it’s gonna work. I think it will bring a certain amount of people, but it’s also are gonna attract a client that, I mean, it’s hard to say, but it’s like, that might wanna be trying to do those things too early, then they’re gonna hurt themselves. And then they’re gonna get, there’s gonna be one more person in the group of people that have got into it, hurt themselves, come out. And then now they’re saying, oh yeah, don’t do classic. Cuz I was into it. And then I got all excited and then I hurt myself and now I’m doing something else. And so it’s just, you just continuing on that same trend.

Chris (19:18):

Yeah. I’ll be honest. Like that’s, that’s not my ideal client anymore either. so let let’s talk about this then. So this was, it was a surprise to me that people saw level method on my it’s an giant billboard and, they, they came in and they’re like, I wanna do level method. Is there a plan within level method to market, to people, you know, under that brand?

Nathan (19:44):

Yeah. We’re actually doing that now. So, you know, marketing togym owners, the cycle time for that. And I’ll just kind of go one of the business cuz it’s, I mean, it’s a talking about business. Yeah. But it’s generally about someone interacts with level method and before they schedule their call with us, it’s usually three to four weeks. Right. So they find out and they’re like, oh yeah, that sounds interesting. And then from the point that they do their call to the point that they sign up is another six weeks about on average. So because, and why is that? Because the, the cycle time of discussing it and thinking about it and having all these discussions with the coaches and all that sort of stuff, it just is, it’s a lot of, you gotta do a lot of things. So the amount that we can grow is just kind of slowed down by how much, and by this point, by how much we can get it out there.

Nathan (20:30):

And I think by this point, most gym owners have heard of level method. They kind of know about it, but, and we’ve not saturated the market, but we’ve just been kind of putting out advertising over and over. But now we’re kind of pivoting and going towards, talking to the regular member, the gym member, the fitness enthusiast, and we did a lead magnet. So we have a programming lead magnet. And the, I mean, the big reason why we’re making this shift is cuz we have this programming lead magnet. We are pumping it out to gym owners. It’s for gyms. It’s like for gym owners. And we used to, I wouldn’t send it to anybody but gym owners I’m like, no we can’t. And then so we opened it up and now we get, we’ve been getting so many leads, but about, you know, two thirds of them are coaches and individual people and personal trainers. And they’re like, we get questions from people that are moving. They looking for the level method.

Chris (21:23):

How does a gym owner market that they’re using level method? Because up until now, for most gyms and me included, it’s kind of been like the behind the scenes, secret delivery system, you know, maybe not like an operating system for a gym, but like the method delivery system. And we use it. It’s effective. It’s great for retention, client excitement, testimonials, but we’ve never been able to really use it to attract new people. And I think, you know, as more and more people are thinking like how do I attract more people they’re looking and saying, can I use level method as a marketing tool?

Nathan (22:00):

That’s why we’re doing advertising. Right. So that we can put it to the individuals and they can go to, and they can look and go to a gym that’s doing level method. And that’s the thing I was thinking. They either talk to their gym owner or they go to the gym. They find a gym in their area. That’s on the directory that we have. So it’s building leads essentially. That’s the one of the side things that we’re really focused on.

Chris (22:27):

That’s great. And is that like an upcoming project? Are you guys already starting that for level method gyms.

Nathan (22:32):

It’s this quarter. So we just finished our quarter planning and we have, like marketing to coaches to help them understand the value. Cuz when I created level method, it was really for that, it was as a coach, I wanted to, you know, help my clients. but then also the individual, we get many requests for people that aren’t necessarily at a gym or whatever they want, to do level method. We don’t have an individual level method yet, but that’s in the works, but it’s more of like an ascension ladder, right? It’s more of like if I’m a client, I there’s some simplified level thing that I can get a prediction of my levels and then ascend up to a gym environment, right. To kinda like now I want to either get a coach or I wanna find a gym to get the the full effect.

Chris (23:20):

See, and in my mind I think that would work better than doing like an online OnRamp. And in fact, there’s a jujitsu gym in the UK and I can’t remember their name right now, but the first steps into their program are all done online. You know, we’re going to teach you a little bit about the history of Brazilian jujitsu and we’re gonna get you to do an air squat and a plank and some other stuff, some stretching, and then you’ll book your first appointment one-on-one et cetera. So yeah,

Nathan (23:49):

Go ahead. The hybrid, that hybrid idea that’s really like to me, the future of fitness is some sort of hybrid where you have structure. So the client can come into classes, but if I’m a coach, I can easily give my client if they’re they’re traveling or they have a home gym. This is so, I mean, considering the pandemic and people have like home gyms now they’re all the functional fitness at 24 hour fitness or whatever. So it’s very easy to provide a workout for somebody, but only if you have this structure of like a level structure. So I have someone that comes into my gym. They do a couple work workouts per week and then they go off, they do their own, but they still need leveled workouts directed to them, like focused on them. And that’s, to me, when you look at the future is gonna be some sort of mixture in order to have a true hybrid model, you have to have this assessment in place. So you have to kind of know where people are, and be able to then, give them something offline that’s gonna be in line with what they’re doing or what their goals are.

Chris (24:53):

All right, man. That’s great. I think we’re gonna wrap up there because I’ve already seen about five different roads we can go down, but we’ll do that another time. so the really interesting part that drew me to this conversation was we can prove with data who is coming into your gym right now. And then we can use that knowledge to build avatars that will help us, not just with our programming, not just with our onboarding, but also our client acquisition process, no matter what that marketing looks like. And that person is, you know, they’re moving, they’re interested in fitness, but they are not very fit yet. And I think that also creates a lot of opportunities for Ascension and retention too. So Nathan man, thank you as always for coming on, sharing your data so freely with everybody and yeah, just kind of helping the gym community at large.

Nathan (25:46):

Thanks man. Appreciate it.

Chris (25:48):

Yeah. You bet.

Mike (25:51):

Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio. Hit subscribe right now so you don’t miss an episode. Now, Chris is back with a final message.

Chris (25:58):

Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio. If you aren’t in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook, this is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in. And I’m there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.

The post Who’s Actually Joining Gyms: What the Data Says appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Summit Preview: The Pareto Plan

Most of your work is just maintenance.

This year, my presentation to Tinkers at Two-Brain Summit will be the Pareto Plan: how to keep your business moving forward instead of just staying busy all the time.

Pareto’s law is called the “80-20 rule” because it states that most of our results come from 20 percent of our work. The law can also apply to your fitness, your investments and a dozen other things.

Most entrepreneurs don’t grow their companies because they don’t prioritize the things that will actually grow their businesses. Instead, they spend all day fighting fires. At the end of the day, they feel overwhelmed, tired and unfulfilled.

With all the distractions you’re facing, you’re probably not finishing most of the projects you start.

The key is to identify and complete the highest-value work first.

You need to understand:

What work to do.Which things to do first.How to focus and get things done. In the Founder Phase, you do everything. In the Farmer Phase, you follow the Value Ladder to delegate roles in your gym. In the Tinker Phase, you have to learn how to prioritize work across your entire platform.

At this year’s Summit, I’ll give you a step-by-step plan to put your growth first, get focused and feel incredible fulfillment every day.

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2022 Summit Preview: 2 Stages

This year, the Two-Brain Summit is back with two stages: one for gym owners and one for coaches.

Get your tickets for the June 4-5 event in Chicago here (after your first ticket, you can buy as many as you like for your team for only $99):

Two-Brain Summit 2022

On the Owners Stage

Sarah Robb O’Hagan: Change the Game by Playing Your Own—How to Build an Unbeatable Company

Ashley Haun: Learning to Lead

Jeff Jucha: Hire Your Dream Team

Kenny Markwardt: Building Career Coaches—From “Hire” to “Retire”

Per Mattsson: Leading Through Change

Tiffy Thompson: Selling by Chat—Secrets of a Virtual Dating Assistant

Colm O’Reilly: The Four Funnels

Chris Cooper: IMPACT!

On the Coaches Stage

Gilbert Dougherty: How to Sell More and Help Clients

Oskar Johed: 3 Steps to More Money, Less Work and Greater Impact

Mike Watson: The Art of Coaching—5 Tools Every Career Coach Needs

Joleen Bingham: How to Gain More 1-on-1 Clients in 90 Days

Jeff and Mikki Martin: Brand X® Base Build Boost—Proven Youth Program Success

Nick Lambe: Sleep Coaching—Increase Income and Impact​

ROI and Action

It’s really easy to get a huge ROI at the summit: Just take action on any single thing presented by any of the speakers listed above.

But more important than the money is the connection: You need to be around gym owners. Your coaches need to be around other coaches.

The real value of the summit is proving you’re not alone out there. You need to meet the other owners and coaches who will march into the future beside you. And I’d love to introduce them to you in Chicago!

Get tickets here.

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2022 Summit Preview: Chris Cooper

You didn’t start a gym to make money. You started a gym to make an impact.

You knew that if you could change one life, you could start a ripple effect that can last decades.

You knew that if you could start a movement in your town, you could change the trajectory of its humans.

You knew that if you could influence 10 people, you might trigger a worldwide change.

And you were right.

You can change a life.

You can change a town.

You can change the world.

At our Summit this year on June 4 and 5 in Chicago, I’m going to talk about impact.

I’m going to tell you how you—and I and the fitness pros around the world—can change policy, change health and change lives in more meaningful ways than ever before.

I’m going to share the opportunities of this new world in which we find ourselves. And, yeah, I’m going to talk about the responsibilities, too.

I’m going to introduce you to allies, identify our targets and show you have to breathe new life into our collective mission.

This is your year.

The Summit is your starting line. I’ll see you there.

Get your Summit tickets here.

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How to Do It the Right Way in the Gym Business

Mike (00:02):

OK, check these levels, this micro—what? Is this even plugged? Oh, hey guys, this is Two-Brain Radio. Keep listening. Chris Cooper is gonna tell you how to do things the way right. Right the way. The right way. Just keep listening while I try to fix all this.

Chris (00:17):

Hey, everybody, it’s Coop here. And usually I come on this podcast to tell you the right things to do, but today I’m gonna talk about something that’s just as important. And that is doing things the right way. My most popular book is Two-Brain Business, but the book that most say is my best is “Help First.” The reason is that all of us gym owners are generous people. Sometimes we’re generous to a fault, and none of us are really great at sales. At least it makes us uncomfortable to do sales, especially when we’re starting out. In fact, I didn’t even realize that I would have to do sales when I graduated up from personal trainer to gym owner. But of course that’s just part of the gym owner’s toolkit. So when I was a salesman over 20 years ago, I was really, really bad at it.

Chris (01:05):

I read all the books by Zig Zigler and I had coaching from a few people, including Joe Marcoux, but I didn’t actually believe that my products, these treadmills and home gyms, were going to help people. And so I sucked at it. And a decade later when I was trying to sign people up for my gym, I had one horrible sales pitch that just went absolutely sideways. Actually, I’m gonna pause here and tell you what that was. This woman who was a teacher who had been living in Kuwait. She came into my gym. She had heard about CrossFit. She had tried a couple of classes in Kuwait, like on her own. And she comes into the gym. This is probably about 2010. And she says, OK, sign me up. And I said, OK, well, before we get going, I gotta tell you, I’m the world’s worst salesman.

Chris (01:52):

And she laughed and she’s like, OK, well, what’s your sales pitch? And so I walked her around the gym and I showed her the equipment and I told her our schedule and I got into like the philosophy of constantly varied functional movement at high intensely blah, blah, blah. And she’s like, yeah, I already know all that stuff. How much are your rates? And so I said, well, what do you do for a living? Right? Like I was looking for an excuse to give her a discount. And she’s like, why does that matter? I’m a substitute teacher. And I said, oh, well, you know, we’ve got this 20% teacher discount, thank you for your service, blah, blah. And finally she’s like, yeah, you really are the world’s worst salesman. I wanna sign up less now than I did when I walked in here. And so that’s because I didn’t understand at the time that I needed to get people to sign up before I could help them.

Chris (02:42):

I realized finally that if I didn’t sell them, I couldn’t help ’em at all. And so I wrote the book “Help First” to solve this problem for everybody else. To put sales into the right frame. Of course, the book is most famous because of the examples in it. I gave dozens of help first strategies that were actually great for more than sales. They’re great for marketing too, because the offer to help is a great way to attract clients and the right clients, of course. I’m gonna share a few of those strategies with you in a moment. And don’t worry that I published this book just over four years ago because the help first mindset timeless. The right way to approach sales and marketing is with the help first mindset. But why do you need to get good at selling your service at all? Well, why can’t you just go out and get your level three certification and hope that’s enough to grow your gym?

Chris (03:36):

And that’s a line that I swallowed from CrossFit for years, that the best trainers just they’re good coaches and that’s it. And the clients will go out and refer people to you and they’ll talk about their success. And they will pull their friends in by the teeth to get them into your gym. Right? I wanted to believe that. And so I did. But gym owners who have been around for more than a couple years know that that’s just not true, or at least it takes too long. So a conversation that I had not long ago at the CrossFit Games made me realize that I needed to get good at sales. And my friend, John Franklin, who later became the founder of Gym Lead Machine, gave me this little bit of advice. And I wanted to share it with you because it really summed up all of the sales training that I had learned over the last 10 years. What he said was Chris, everybody is going out there and they’re getting advice from someone.

Chris (04:29):

Sometimes that advice is wrong. Sometimes that advice even does them harm. So if you care about them enough to make sure that they get the right advice, that will help them grow their gym and not harm themselves. Then we need to get this message out there to people. What John was talking about was marketing for Two-Brain. But this is very true in your hometown too. People are getting advice from somewhere. If they’re interested in losing weight, they are asking someone how to lose weight. And there are people out there that are giving them advice that won’t help them. There are even people who are out there giving that advice that will hurt them in the long term, right? Things like starvation diets and crazy supplements that will cut down on their lean body mass, which will cut down on their metabolic engine, which will create all kinds of comorbidity problems like type two diabetes.

Chris (05:22):

In the long term. There are people who mean well who are giving out bad advice and they’re doing it louder than you are. These people need to hear from you. And if you really wanna make an impact in your community, then you need to get good at sharing your message. You need to get good at marketing to strangers and you need to get good at selling the people who trust you. So first, selling is really coaching. The first coaching that you do with somebody is coaching them to the right answer. Now, for some that come into your gym, constantly varied functional movement at high intensity performed in a group setting is the right answer, but that’s usually not the right answer for a newcomer. And it might not be the answer for everyone. And it might not be the answer for this person sitting in front of you right now.

Chris (06:12):

Now I can say the same thing about one on one or nutrition coaching, or online coaching or anything else, our needs change. And you need to care enough to coach them to the right answer right now. And that’s sales. The second step in the sales process for me is to remove the choice of what price do I tell them, remove that stress. So first when they’re sitting in front of you tell them the right answer. Here is exactly what you need to reach your goals right now. Now you gotta know their goals, of course, but you’re a great coach. You can look at their goal. You can break down the process to get there. And you can say, here’s exactly what you have to do. So worry about that first. Put price out of your mind, put price outta the conversation and just tell them the answer.

Chris (06:55):

But second, remove the choice in your brain about what the price is going to be, write your rates and your packages in a book. And after you tell them the right answer to get to their goals, say, how does that sound to you? And they’ll say, great. And then you’ll flip to the page in your book that has that exact package that you just prescribed. And you just point to the answer, OK, here’s the rate. Then you don’t have to do deep psychological work to overcome your own limiting beliefs or whatever the other psycho business hype buzzwords are right now. You just need to remove the choice from your stressed out brain. If you’re sitting down in front of somebody and asking yourself, what can I sell them? You probably won’t sell them much. But if you’re sitting down in front of sell in front of the client and thinking to yourself, how can I help them?

Chris (07:46):

Then the steps are only two. The first is tell ’em the answer. And the second is tell ’em the price. And if they say, oh, I can’t afford that. Then you say, all right, what can you afford? And if I was in your shoes and I had to make a choice and I had to prioritize only part of the solution, this is what I would prioritize. And then you change based on that, right? You don’t have to worry about like overcoming objections or selling for maximum value. Any of that stuff. You just have to focus on coaching them to the right answer. Now, second, retention. Retention is just sales over time. So every single day that somebody comes into your gym, you have to sell them on coming back tomorrow. And to do that, you must care enough to tell them the truth before they decide on their own.

Chris (08:31):

This program is not working for me. Before they address their own self guilt about not following your nutrition plan. You must care enough to address that first. And of course, you have to do that in caring, tactful way as if you are addressing your six-year-old, and you have to realize that it takes time and you have to not overwhelm ’em, but these are the skills of coaching. The skills of coaching are not necessarily doing the best squat triage. The real skills of coaching are getting people to change their behavior in small, incremental, but measurable ways over time. Third. The right way to approach staffing and paying staff and hiring staff is to create a long lasting platform for them by giving them opportunities to grow the pie while being shielded from risk. We call this intrapreneurialism, and getting your staff to grow and stick around means also help first.

Chris (09:28):

You have to give them opportunities to get started. You have to show them how to become a coach. You have to show them how to share their gift and their passion for helping other people. And then you have to show them, here is how you make a career at this. You have to break down the math for them. You have to do more than encourage them. You have to actually show them the process. Here’s how you can do it. Helping first doesn’t mean giving your personal trainers on staff an 80% commission, or letting them do personal training for free off to the side as long as they coach a certain number of groups. You have to care enough to actually help them. If they’re going to work for you or in your space, then you have to care enough to say, I’m going to mentor you through this process of growth so that you can make this your career instead of just abdicating responsibility, giving them free space and letting them figure it out on their own.

Chris (10:23):

If you care, if you want to help, then you will guide them. You will mentor them. Now, fourth is marketing. If you really want to help people, then you have to go out of your comfort zone and reach out to them and help them where they are. This is why I love content marketing. If you care enough about your audience, then you can just give the knowledge away for free because nobody’s buying knowledge. The best people who consume your knowledge will immediately recognize the value of your coaching. Some, a few, will get results just from your free material. And that’s fine, but most will just follow along, not taking action, but paying attention until they’re ready to pay for coaching. Maybe that’s what you’re doing right now with this podcast. Help first doesn’t mean you give your service away for free, or you just keep giving people free coaching forever.

Chris (11:18):

It doesn’t mean discounts. It means building a client-centric business and taking responsibility for doing the things that will actually help people, even when those things are uncomfortable for you. That is called leadership. It’s called help first, it’s called building a client-centric business and it is the right way to do things. We’re called Two-Brain Business because there are two sides of your brain. There’s the logical analytical side. This is how you do it. And there’s the caring, creative, empathetic side. This is the way I want to be. Early on in my career. I was told that if you’re gonna succeed in the business of fitness, you gotta sell, sell, sell. You gotta make these massive promises. You gotta do bait and switch marketing. And I said, if that’s how I have to be, then this business is not right for me. I looked around to try and find a model of doing fitness successfully in a way that felt good. I couldn’t find a model. And so I had to build it and I started building it with the publication of help first back in 2017. I didn’t wanna be a slimy salesman. So I had to figure out how to make sales unslimy, and that’s called help first. And that’s why that book is the favorite of many people. Hope it helps you.

Mike (12:37):

This is Two-Brain Radio, please remember to like and subscribe for more episodes. Now here’s Chris one more time.

Chris (12:44):

Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio. If you aren’t in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook, this is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in. And I’m there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.

 

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2022 Summit Preview: Sarah Robb O’Hagan

Nike.

Gatorade.

Virgin.

Flywheel.

Exos.

Mom.

Author.

Sarah Robb O’Hagan is the keynote speaker at our Summit this year on June 4 and 5 in Chicago!

Get your tickets here.

After reading her book, “Extreme You: Step Up. Stand Out. Kick Ass. Repeat.”, I knew that her message was exactly what owners needed right now.

Our theme for the 2022 Summit is “impact,” and Robb O’Hagan’s message is about creating impact from imperfection.

This is the story of an amazing leader who took big risks and climbed to the very top of our industry. You’ll love her story, her style and her impact on your life!

“Sarah doesn’t just sit at the table—she stands on it. She’s full of inspiring advice about how to bounce back from failures, speak your truth, embrace your quirks and have a lot more fun along the way.”  —Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and Founder of Leanin.org.

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7 Fitness Industry Trends You Should Know About

Some fitness industry trends just don’t catch on—remember paddleboard yoga, Shake Weights and sauna suits?

Now you might only find these products at a garage sale, but their creators thought they were exactly what consumers wanted at the time. These fitness entrepreneurs watched their sales numbers dwindle while boot camps, CrossFit and functional fitness took off. 

It’s never been easy to accurately predict which fitness trends will have a successful run or lasting impact. Now, with all the rapid technology developments in the post-pandemic fitness market, it’s even harder to predict which current fitness trends will catch on or how long their run will last.

Take Peloton, for example. The company exploded during the pandemic: In 2020 it had a market capitalization of almost $50 billion, with shares over $160. In April 2022, its market cap is $6.68 billion, and shares are at $20. (More on Peloton below!)

With new and interesting trends emerging all the time, it’s going to be fun to watch the evolution of the industry and play with all the new toys. To give you the lay of the land right now, we’ll dig into seven of the most popular fitness industry trends.

The Metaverse

We can’t go any further without mentioning the metaverse: Most fitness industry trends will hook into this new digital technology in some way. However, at this point Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is still constructing his version of the Metaverse, and most people outside the gaming community have a fuzzy definition of the concept.

To put it simply, the metaverse is the merging of virtual reality (VR) and the internet through web platforms capable of supporting the activities and creations therein. Users get the whole metaverse experience by donning a VR headset and gear before logging on to the web platform.

For example, imagine entering a web space where your avatar can interact with the avatar of your instructor in the exercise environment you choose. You might find yourself throwing punches in a boxing ring, rowing on a lake, running through a forest or meditating in a meadow.

This experience is already possible through VR fitness companies such as Within, the developer of the workout app “Supernatural.” Recently, Zuckerberg’s Meta acquired Within. So, “Supernatural” will have a metaverse address.

The Metaverse will also allow fitness VR companies to create more exercise environments and interactions with AI or the avatars of other real people. Expect exciting updates as new fitness products are created for the metaverse.

Now, on to our list of fitness industry trends.

Wearable tech is perhaps the hottest fitness industry trend at present.
1. Top Fitness Industry Trend: Wearables

With global revenues close to $90 billion, the wearable devices market is robust, with no signs of the gear ending up in a garage sale anytime soon. Instead, it is a fitness market niche where Fitbit, Apple and Garmin make most of the money. However, new entrants and wearable products are making inroads and carving out market share.

Wearable activity trackers and related app technology provide solutions to for many fitness consumers. Modern exercisers want:

To effortlessly track our activities and performance.To qualitatively monitor our activities.Information on overall wellness.Instant feedback.

Smart watches and fitness trackers now record and display our stress levels, body temperature, heart rate and sleep patterns in addition to other metrics. And they’re only getting better. For example, human performance company WHOOP is marketing a wearable that tracks your strain, recovery, sleep and overall health.

However, activity trackers aren’t the only innovative products in the wearable fitness gear market. For example, sports apparel companies such as Under Armour are marketing smart shoes that communicate with a mobile app to monitor and report running data. Some clothing manufacturers even claim their gear will help you improve yoga poses and running performance, and there’s even swimwear that monitors UV exposure.

Also, for those who don’t want to advertise their fitness tracking, brands like Oura and Bellabeat offer fitness tracking products that appear as classic pieces of jewelry.

When it comes to wearable tech, we’re just getting started. Of all fitness industry trends, this one looks like it will influence consumers for years even if the exact technology evolves.

2. Seamless Integration Between the Virtual and In-Person Fitness Environments

As a survival tactic during the pandemic, many coaches moved their businesses online, offering home-bound clients personal training sessions; exercise classes; nutritional advice; and coaching on sleep, motivation and stress management. Many of us didn’t realize that period was the beginning of a new era in fitness.

Even though pandemic restrictions have been lifted for the most part, the virtual fitness world is still operating at full speed after two years of experimentation and evolution. The eCommerce environment is now rich with fitness products and services, and coaches have more tools at their disposal, whether they operate online or use the new tech to provide more to their clients outside the gym.

The pandemic forced great coaches to expand their reach outside the physical space, and many learned they can do even more for clients with a holistic approach. This helps clients make progress faster, but it also reduces cost of revenue (COR) in some cases and extends market reach for many coaches.

Here are just some of the changes:

Coaches have access to new channels and apps for client engagement and metric tracking/analysis.Clients are more receptive to online coaching, instant messaging, digital accountability, and app-based communication and communities.Clients see the value in vacation, travel or at-home workouts that are integrated into a plan that includes training at a physical location. (See Hybrid Memberships, below.)Fitness trainers can offer more habits-based coaching on outside-the-gym activities such as sleep, stress management and nutrition.Clients have improved access to at-home fitness products to supplement training in a gym.Hybrid memberships: Perfect for those who want coaching but might only want to train at a gym once or twice a week.
3. Hybrid Memberships

The powerful integration of in-person and virtual fitness has highlighted the benefits of “hybrid memberships”—one of the hottest fitness industry trends of 2022.

Due to the increased fitness consumer demand for convenient online options, some gym owners are offering a newer version of conventional memberships that give members access to in-person coaching and on-demand online services.

For example, a coach might offer personal training once a week, plus four at-home workouts and habits-based nutrition and recovery coaching. An increasing number of fitness clients experienced this sort of coaching during the pandemic, so more people now realize the effectiveness and value of these hybrid memberships. A high-touch package like the one described above might sell for $300 a month or more.

Coaching: Inside or Outside the Gym

In 2019, many fitness aficionados might have named access to a gym and its equipment as the main benefit of membership. Over the course of the pandemic, many people realized that coaching is incredibly valuable and can take place in person or online. Moreover, many exercisers found at-home workouts saved time and allowed them to train more often. Instead of a 15-minute trip to the gym for a 60-minute workout, clients could simply run to the garage to perform a short session programmed by a personal coach who reviewed video to offer tips.

After the pandemic lockdowns ended, some coaches stayed online for good, but others returned to the gym and linked bricks-and-mortar facilities to online services. The result: a best-of-both-worlds situation in which consumers have more options than ever. In the past, gym owners might have lost clients who wanted to use a digital system for at-home workouts. Now, they can integrate those systems into complete wellness plans.

If you don’t have a virtual extension to your gym, you can scale your gym business with a hybrid relationship that involves virtual fitness providers. For example, Sona Online hosts a wide variety of live streaming and recorded fitness classes, including HIIT, core, cardio, etc. It’s also launchable on the Apple Watch app. A coach could prescribe Sona workouts to complement other aspects of a personalized plan.

Beyond coaching gyms, other commercial facilities are taking advantage of this fitness trend. Here are two examples:

Odyssey by VIDA Fitness: Odyssey provides live, high-energy online fitness classes from six locations in Washington, D.C., and Virginia. Memberships allow people access to facilities and outdoor and virtual classes.Wheelhouse On Demand: Wheelhouse has a hybrid fitness studio with a prominent online following. Train in person or access live-streamed or prerecorded classes.

Aside from providing a virtual option for clients, hybrid memberships allow owners to diversify their sources of income, affordably scale or get ahead of the competition.

New platforms are using AI and VR to offer more coaching to clients who train at home.
4. AI Coaching and Personal Training

Technological advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) produce products that can replace pizza cooks, Uber drivers, camera persons, janitors and even lab techs. AI fitness might provide real-time personal instruction, but it lacks the intuitive and intangible abilities needed to completely replace human coaches who build strong personal relationships with clients. Nevertheless, AI and ML devices serve as excellent training aids.

How do AI Coaches and Personal Trainers Work?

AI coaching works by tracking your movements during exercise and health-related activities to help you make the necessary changes to reach your goals. To achieve this function, you would use your smartphone or smartwatch equipped with AI and ML to analyze data collected from sensors in your fitness wearables.

Depending on the app, the sensors collect personal data that includes your movements and body position, calories burned, heart rate, repetitions count, and other metrics. Then, your device uses ML and AI to give you real-time analysis and instruction to improve your performance and get better results. Also, along with using your data, AI coaches use a digital library of expert knowledge to offer you better workout and lifestyle strategies consistent with your anatomy, fitness level, goals and feedback.

The AI Influence

AI and the “internet of things” (IoT) have made the fitness industry a hotbed of innovation, with new fitness products entering the market regularly. By the year 2027, industry experts predict the fitness app market will be worth $14.64 billion, with over 100 million fitness consumers in 2024.

5. In-home Fitness Equipment

As many people headed back to gyms in 2021, the fortunes of the in-home fitness industry took a drop from 2020 pandemic highs. However, all indications show that at-home training is still among the top fitness industry trends, with Fortune Business Insights projecting a compound average growth rate (CAGR) of 4.6 percent from 2021 to 2028.

This projected growth is partly due to new users who turned to at-home products during COVID lockdowns. In addition, many consumers emerged from the pandemic era with a keen desire to maintain their health without travel time, and the new work-from-home trend has disrupted commuting patterns. Some consumers also have more disposable income to spend in fitness products because of sharp changes in spending habits over the course of the pandemic.

Here are a few examples of popular at-home fitness products:

The Mirror

Like the other product-related trends, digital technology is revolutionizing at-home fitness equipment with features once associated with science fiction, fantasy and horror movies. Imagine an image in your mirror that talks to you—and tells you to squat deeper.

In today’s digital environment, this scenario is no longer farfetched because of companies such as Mirror. This New York-based startup recently launched a unique product that allows people to get the live, interactive exercise-class experience at home. The system features a 52-inch rectangular mirror that transforms into an interactive exercise venue where you can hear and see the instructor and your classmates.

From the comfort of your home, you can stream more than 50 live fitness classes every week from Mirror’s New York studio. Some of the top fitness instructors lead the classes. You can also select on-demand workouts from a vast library that includes boxing, cardio, yoga, strength, HIIT and many other disciplines.

While at-home fitness might have peaked from 2020 to 2022, it’s still a favorite for many people who want to save time and avoid traveling.
Peloton

Peloton gained fame as the flagship product in the COVID 19 at-home fitness revolution. The company offers streaming video feeds of live exercise classes on its exercise bikes and treadmills. For several years, it has been a leader in cardiovascular training equipment—and stationary cycles have a 41.4 percent share in the global at-home exercise equipment market. However, Peloton’s dominance has begun to wane.

In January 2022, Peloton’s shares sank 24 percent from news of the temporary halt on its bike production on top of its hiring freeze in November 2021. Early in 2022, the company’s sales and marketing staff was bracing for possible layoffs of 41 percent of workers. In February 2022, the company laid off 2,800 workers.

Apparently, Peloton has become a victim of its own success. Along with attracting more competitors into the field, a 172 percent sales spike in 2020 gave a false impression of future demand. As a result, the initial tidal wave of demand in 2020 overwhelmed Peloton’s product supply.

As a response, the company bought the exercise equipment manufacturer Precor. Then it ramped up its supply of bikes and treadmill products to the point of being seriously overstocked in the face of a demand level far below its forecasts. According to expert Brian O’Rourke, Peloton’s projected $8 billion valuations depended on a 60 percent home-fitness market share—an unreasonable number.

Problems aside, Peloton is making moves to recover and is still a player in the game. In spring 2022, the company announced reductions in equipment price and increases in subscription price. Only time will tell if these moves will pay off.

Gamified Workouts                  

A significant development during the pandemic lockdown was the increased popularity of gamified workouts. One of the most popular apps for at-home exercise use is Zwift. This mobile app allows you to use your existing bike for racing your friends or others online in a multiplayer video game format. Also, you can use Zwift on a treadmill.

But you can go further into the video-game-meets-workout world with VR products such as Beat Saber, Pistol Whip, Dance Central and so on. It’s not clear how effective some of these games will be when it comes to improving fitness, but they get people off the couch and make movement fun. Expect more in the future.

Boutique fitness goes mainstream: Watch for more studio chains in your area.
6. Publicly Traded Fitness Boutique Franchises

Move over CrossFit. A few publicly traded franchises have started a whole new wave of exciting growth in group fitness. Two of the hottest fitness franchises are F45 and XPOF.

F45

Rising star F45 is a provider of group classes that rocked the industry by becoming the first publicly traded boutique fitness studio. In addition, business for F45 has been terrific on a global scale, with over 1,900 franchises in more than 50 countries.

The “F” in F45 stands for fundamental. This little detail shows F45’s similarity to CrossFit. However, though the principles of both systems are similar, F45 differs from CrossFit in some key areas. Some differences are:

F45 workouts are the same around the world, whereas all CrossFit affiliates program their own workouts.The atmosphere is less competitive than in CrossFit.The F45 program uses more technology as a workout enhancer.F45 focuses more on cardiovascular health than strength training.F45 workouts are just 45 minutes.

Online reviews indicate that F45 is more popular than CrossFit with some demographics because it is less competitive. Nevertheless, the fitness franchisor has a long way to go before reaching the success of CrossFit. But the F45 program is highly appealing, and its scalable franchise model makes F45 a real force in the fitness market.

XPOF Fitness

With over 2,100 franchises, Xponential Fitness is a significant international franchisor of boutique fitness brands. Its objective is to grant access to 10 boutique brands.

At present, Xponential Fitness offers a diversified platform including running, dancing, functional training, boxing, yoga, stretching, barre and cycling. It has a presence of 2,100 studios in 48 states and 12 counties. Among the brands are:

Club Pilates—the largest Pilates brand.CycleBar—the largest indoor cycling brand.StretchLab—one-on-one and group sessions.Row House—low-impact, high-voltage indoor rowing.AKT—dance-based cardio.STRIDE—cardio and strength training involving the treadmill.

As boutique fitness goes mainstream, Xponential Fitness is a player to watch.

“Flexercise” can be a great option for stressed people who just can’t handle high intensity but still want to work on their fitness.
7. Flexercise

Not long ago, most people relegated stretching to warm-up and cool-down periods. Or they might have taken a yoga class now and then. However, flexibility and functional strength training are trending upward.

Flexercise is a holistic approach to fitness that promotes various forms of working your mind and body, including stretching, low-impact workouts, Pilates, walks, yoga moves and several other movement forms. It can also include lighter or shorter versions of some existing exercises or programs.

People can perform flexercise in the gym, outdoors or at home, and anyone can join in at any time. To the consumer, flexercise is accessible and convenient.

What Do These Fitness Industry Trends Mean for the Future?

The fitness industry had a market value of around $81 billion in 2020, with a compound average growth rate of 7.2 percent projected from 2021 to 2026. As tragic and dreadful as the COVID-19 pandemic was, it served as a turning point that accelerated the end of some dated and waning fitness business models and the emergence of new business trends.

The fitness industry trends described above are just some of the exciting developments that will help coaches and businesses get more people moving. More great things are coming.

Two-Brain Business specializes in helping gym owners create solid, stable businesses that evolve, adapt to current fitness industry trends and help clients get results. For info about working with a mentor to grow your fitness business, click here to book a free call.

About the Author: John Burson successfully ran a personal training business for over 20 years, and he has written volumes of published articles on business entrepreneurship, finance and the fitness industry.

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Resting Classes in Gyms: Not as Stupid as They Might Seem

Going to a gym to take a resting class—it seems laughable on the surface.

On March 27, the Wall Street Journal published the article “The Hot New Class at Your Gym? Resting.”

The short summary: Gym are reporting that pandemic-weary members “are seeing increased demand for gentler classes,” with many providing new offerings such as meditation sessions, yoga training and recovery rooms.

If you’ve ever put the workout Fran on the whiteboard or seen the effects of intense training, you might have shaken your head and ignored the article.

Here’s how it can help you improve the client journey at your gym.

Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper has presented this quote from Seth Godin many times:

“Don’t find customers for your products. Find products for your customers.”

I’ve definitely ignored that sage advice in the past.

For example, I considered posting a deadlift workout on our website for the day but actually making people run 5 kilometers when they arrived “because the cherry pickers needed it.” I internally rolled my eyes when some clients told me they didn’t like working on Olympic weightlifting and would prefer to do burpees. And I personally pushed through tough workouts on days when I really, really didn’t need them.

In the box community, we know intensity brings results. The evidence is clear. So we tend to focus on delivering intensity and pushing people to work hard and give ‘er every day.

But what happens when your customers are worn out, beaten up and depressed after two years of working from home, home-schooling restless kids, cancelling travel plans, dealing with insane inflation and worrying about being sick?

Are those people still fired up to roll into your gym and thruster until they vomit? Or are they looking for something different right now even though they signed up to push their limits?

That’s where the client journey and Goal Review Sessions come in.

What Do You Want Right Now?

Two-Brain mentors have gym owners “map the client journey”—the exact path every person will take through the business, from sign-up to cancellation. Along the way, it’s established best practice to review a client’s goals at least every 90 days.

In Goal Review Sessions, you analyze progress and highlight successes. Then you adjust the plan if needed. This is referred to as the Prescriptive Model.

So what if a hard-charging member hasn’t made a lot of progress lately due to a ridiculous work-from-home schedule that’s constantly disrupted by sick kids who can’t go to school? The member is stressed, tired and short on time. She knows high-intensity workouts would help her become fitter, but right now she’s just trying to stay afloat. Her goals have actually shifted from “reach the podium at masters competitions” to “try to stay sane and just do something three times a week.”

With that information, you can alter your prescription for that client:

“Given your current goals and situation, let’s pause our group HIIT program right now. Instead, sign up for personalized at-home coaching. I’ll provide three short, lower-intensity workouts each week as well as coaching on sleep, nutrition, recovery and stress management. We need to take care of you right now.”

Experienced gym owners will know that personalized service is actually more valuable to the client and the gym, and it’s also going to solve problems for this client. No, it won’t help the client win the Masters of the Universe Ultra-Intense Throwdownapalooza. But that’s not the goal right now. The goal is “just do something,” and if you don’t figure that out, the client will become increasingly likely to cancel.

If you talk to clients quarterly and review their goals, you can adjust them. And if you start to see trends—like 40 percent of your members are struggling with motivation—you can take a calculated, measured response to create a product that will solve their problems.

And that’s where “resting classes” might come in. Even if they seem ridiculous at first glance.

Remember: You sell progress toward goals, not a fitness method.

What They Need, Not What You Like

The point: You won’t know how to serve your clients if you don’t talk to them regularly about their goals.

You won’t know how to adjust plans for individuals whose circumstances have changed, and you won’t see opportunities to create new products and services for current clients. You’ll just continue fly blind, serve the same meals and hope your clients still want to eat them.

I’m not saying high-intensity exercise doesn’t produce amazing results. It does. And it’s the right prescription for some people.

But you’re a coach, and your job is to help clients reach individual health and fitness goals—even when the goal changes from “PR my deadlift” to “try to get seven hours of sleep and stretch for 10 minutes a day while managing the raging new stresses in my life.”

So be a coach, not a fitness dictator.

And start doing Goal Review Sessions so you’re always giving clients exactly what they need.

To find out how a mentor can help you with your client journey, book a call.

The post Resting Classes in Gyms: Not as Stupid as They Might Seem appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Will the CrossFit Games Actually Help Your Gym?

Andrew (00:01):

The CrossFit Games. Do they help your gym grow? Chris Cooper answers that question on this episode of Two-Brain Radio.

Chris (00:07):

Hey everybody, Chris Cooper here, and I love the CrossFit Games. I love watching it. I competed in my first CrossFit competition in 2009, it was called the CrossFit Ontario championship or something like that in Moss Park armory in Toronto. I remember the organizers got in trouble for using the CrossFit brand incorrectly. And then I remember after that there were sectionals and then Regionals, and back then you could walk onto the floor at sectionals and compete. And I did that in 2010. And then, you know, we had the Regionals and then we had the Games and then we had the online qualifiers and all that cool stuff. And the original adopters, the evangelists for the brand who got on board over a decade ago, like me, we watched the rise of the Games, the expansion, the branding, then the contraction. And now the Games are back again.

Chris (00:59):

And CrossFit home office said at a town hall last week that the primary marketing that they plan to do for affiliates is to hype the Games season. So today I want to talk about will the Games actually help your gym or not? This is the question that long time affiliates have been trying to answer for at least a decade. So I’m gonna break the Games season down into the Open and then sectionals, Regionals, qualifiers, whatever they’re called. And then finally the Games. I’m gonna talk about who benefits at each stage. Is it home office? Is it us, the affiliates? Is it our coaches? Is it our clients? And I’m gonna talk about, in some cases, ways that you can leverage CrossFit’s only marketing plan for your affiliate to get some more clients in the door if you want them. So first let’s start with the Open.

Chris (01:50):

Now the Open is like the church picnic. It’s for people who are already in the tribe. It makes home office some money for sure. And it might help retention if you’re using the intramural Open plan, but it usually won’t get you new clients. In source data from gyms, the number of clients who come in and say, I wanna go to the Games, sign me up for the Open, is less than one per gym worldwide. When you think about it, this is actually obvious, right? It’s just like how the Olympics doesn’t produce sprinters. Sprinters love watching the Olympics. And we all love watching sprinting, but you don’t see the, the common 25 year old Googling, how do I start a sprinting program during the commercial? Right? You don’t see the average 30 year old who’s looking to lose weight, Googling, start figure skating lessons during the winter Olympics.

Chris (02:44):

And you don’t even see 18 year olds trying to figure out how to become a ski jumper after watching these dudes and these women launch themselves into the air in their crazy tights, right? The Olympics do not produce new clients for these sports new practitioners, just like the Games does not really produce new practitioners who are looking for like a great workout. Okay? That’s what the data says. The other question that I have for you is in some cases, and we’re talking like less than one client per gym spread across the world, do you really want the person who’s coming in and saying, I just watched the CrossFit Games for the first time. I wanna go there next year. If you’ve been a long time affiliate like me, you might not want that client. Now, if you are a new affiliate, you’re very excited about the Games that might be your dream client.

Chris (03:37):

And if that’s the case, I’m gonna talk about that later in the show. Now, is the Open great for your staff? Most people say that it burns the staff out. Is it great for your gym? It’s good for retention for sure. If you’re following the intramural Open plan. But I remember way too many years where by the end of the Open, I was completely burned out. My staff was exhausted and I had maybe made some money for CrossFit HQ back then, but I hadn’t made any more. And I loved the PRs. I loved the energy and the excitement, but after five or six weeks, man, I was done. Let’s move on to Regionals. The regional events are awesome because they’re run by somebody else, right? It’s like the primary reason most people go out for dinner is not because they’re a bad cook. It’s because they don’t wanna prep, cook, serve and clean up afterward.

Chris (04:27):

So the beautiful part about Regionals, even though it makes home office money and not you, is that it might get you fired up for your job. It creates an opportunity for you to hang out with other people in the cult, which is always great. It creates an energetic mass of people who are fired up about fitness. And that’s awesome. Many of these passionate people will go on to coach others who don’t care about the Games at all. The Games are exciting and it’s great to be among people like us. And this is why we do summit and high level quarterly meetups like we did in Dallas last week, because you need to be with your tribe. Regionals are amazing for that. You don’t have to go to Madison, Wisconsin. If you don’t have to, you can go to someplace exotic. You can go to someplace nearby.

Chris (05:09):

You can watch the competition. You can just kind of be among the others, the rest of us. And that’s, what’s great about it. So the value of Regionals to you, aside from the spectator experience is really it can fire your coaches up to deliver the real mission, which is to change lives through health and fitness, not to produce more Games athletes. So one of the biggest benefits of Regionals is that you can take your coaches to them. And if you need to get your coaches inspired, fired up. This is one of the cheapest ways that you can do that. You can book a flight, you can book a couple of hotel stays. You can go to Regionals for maybe two or three days. You can take your coaches out for drinks. You can let them be among the others that will reinvigorate their passion and their sense for CrossFit.

Chris (05:54):

And if you can do that for the Games, even better, I have never had a bad experience going to the CrossFit Games. And two years ago, I took my entire staff down to Madison or a bunch of the coaches anyway, maybe some of the part-timers didn’t make it. I put them up in hotels. They watched the events and they were so excited that when they got back, that excitement showed and it overflowed in their classes and our clients got really excited and they showed up and the enthusiasm actually did trickle down into getting clients results, right? So coach energy, improved client adherence, client adherence, improved client results. And that’s basically how that works. So the cool thing about taking your staff to Regionals or the Games is that you can measurably affect client outcomes. Will that trickle down into creating more value for your business?

Chris (06:46):

Probably not, except it will help get your staff fired up and love their jobs more. Okay. Now let’s talk about the Games itself and its effect on you, your business, your staff, your clients. I just mentioned that taking your staff to the Games is a great way to improve staff retention and energy, but it doesn’t help your clients. And so here’s the thing. Preparing for competition does not actually get your clients closer to their goals. It makes them better at the method, just like taking a higher level yoga course makes them better at doing yoga, but doesn’t necessarily improve their health and fitness. If you look at data that talks about all cause mortality, right? Premature death, going from sedentary, sitting completely still 23 hours a day to basic fitness walking around the block one once a day, that reduces all cause mortality risk by 50%, right?

Chris (07:43):

Just walking around the block, going from basic fitness that walking around the block to a regular routine, three workouts a week, whether it’s Peloton speed walking or whatever, that will drop all cause mortality by another few percentage points maybe another 10%. But going from very fit, four hard workouts a week to elite, competing at fitness does not change all cause mortality at all, but it actually increases injury risk dramatically, both chronically, overuse injuries and acutely, you fall off the rings and tear your shoulder up right. Now. It might keep your clients excited and engaged in doing stuff they’d normally be scared to do, but that’s more a factor of competition itself than competing in the Open or Regionals or the CrossFit Games. In the beginning, like 2010, the only CrossFit events were CrossFit events, but now there are so many, we can’t count them all.

Chris (08:42):

And so while competition might actually help your clients once in a while, it won’t be the thing that saves them. Reaching elite levels of fitness will not increase their lifespan. It will not increase their health span. The risks for most people outweigh the rewards. So encouraging every client to compete is not going to help every client. Having the ability to compete might encourage about 10% of your clients to stick around. But you know, again, your model might not want you to really cater to competitive clients right. Now for most of us, that’s true, but there is a model of gym that will benefit directly from the Games. And this is the very tiny 1% exception. These are the gyms who are successful because they sell coaching to CrossFit athletes, or they use the success of their athletes to sell coaching to people who want to be elite.

Chris (09:41):

So maybe you’re specializing in like high ranking Games athletes, and you are coaching them one on one or doing training camps. And you’re charging more for that. And that is supplying your gym with cashflow. But most gyms actually screw up. What they do is the opposite. They, they say the better the athlete, the less they pay and the less coaching they receive. So the great athletes get their gym membership subsidized by trading for coaching time, or maybe the gym just lets the athlete follow random programming in the corner, right? The people who need that most help from coaching are actually getting the least because they’re elite. The other option. The other model for making money from being elite and competing at the Games is to sell competitive programming or remote coaching to those who are not in your gym. You get put on a stage, you’re on camera.

Chris (10:35):

You get a little bit of renown from that. And so that makes it a lot easier to sell remote coaching on the internet, right? You’re internet famous. Therefore you can sell an internet program. And this actually does subsidize a lot of gyms who wouldn’t be successful on their own. So gyms who are competitive in the CrossFit realm without selling remote coaching or elite level programming would not make enough money to survive because winning the Games does not mean that you’re winning at business. And that’s really, really important. It’s a message that CrossFit home office often confuses, right? They put people on camera because they’ve won the Games. And now they’re a business expert. It’s really important to know the difference, right? And this of course, doesn’t stop the owner of these gyms from giving business advice to people who need to be successful without selling Games programming and t-shirts and stuff.

Chris (11:27):

But that’s another story. The big lesson here that Greg Glassman learned about the Games is that it’s not the competition itself that matters. It’s the media around the competition that really makes a difference. The outcome isn’t as important as getting the word CrossFit into local shoe stores, you know, thanks Reebok and on television. Thanks ESPN. While it’s debatable whether that trickled down into new clients, it definitely helped CrossFit reach a broader audience than the Games site currently does. And so while the spectacle is interesting to people who are already in the church and it can increase the energy and passion of those who are all already CrossFit evangelists, it will probably not turn a stranger to the brand or somebody who’s turned off the brand or somebody who’s just mildly aware of CrossFit into a passionate CrossFitter. It will probably not inspire them to start without the media surrounding the event itself, right?

Chris (12:33):

It’s not how fast you can do the thrusters that counts, it’s who sees the thrusters happening that will actually affect affiliates. Now, this is where the focus needs to be is back on media. And that means telling stories between events. It means sharing the back stories of the athletes. It means talking about how everybody in every CrossFit gym in the world is doing these thrusters and these pull-ups. And that’s what’s making them fitter and healthier and happier, not climbing the mountain. You know, Greg Glassman’s best line about the Games and competition ever was that we can all be mountain climbers, even though we’re watching these people summit, the Games is great for inspiration for people who are already into CrossFit, just like the world series is great for people who are already playing baseball and the Olympics are great for people who are already doing those sports.

Chris (13:30):

It’s a source of inspiration. It does not necessarily translate into you more clients in your gym. So you can answer for yourself, you know, is this good? Is it bad? Is it sufficient to help affiliates grow? I’m gonna give you three strategies right now that will help if you want to use the Games in the CrossFit competitive season to help grow your gym. So first in the Open, you can use the CrossFit Open as a framework for an intramural Open. The intramural Open was published on the CrossFit Games site this year, originally misattributed, but the intramural Open actually came from my high school where intramurals were just like a fact of life. And I copied that model, which they’ve been using since 1972 to build the first intramural Open at Catalyst the first year, the Open came out and it caught fire. People used it.

Chris (14:20):

They started doing events and hyping up Friday night lights or whatever they wanted to call it, dividing people into teams and awarding points for participation spirit instead of the leaderboard, because for most people, the leaderboard doesn’t matter. So it’s very simple. Every year before the Open starts, we publish something called an intramural Open guide. It’s step by step. You follow that. You lay that over the intramural Open and you make sure that this competition that gets you excited actually helps grow your gym too. The second strategy is the qualifiers or Regionals. And the best thing that you can do here is use these events to fire up yourself and your staff to rekindle the passion that you have for high level or elite fitness. Now not every client in your gym has to want to be elite, but if you surround yourself by people who are extremely passionate, you know, the top echelon, the high priests of CrossFit that will reinvigorate you and give you energy for the next three to six months.

Chris (15:21):

So as far as Regionals go, I don’t think it’s important that your clients get excited about it, but they’re a great opportunity for you and your staff to go visit and kind of rekindle that passion a little bit. It’s also a nice holiday. And of course, somebody else does the work. When it comes to the Games, I think your biggest opportunity at the Games is to find networking opportunities. So look for other gym owners that, you know, have been successful and arrange to meet up with them, go and visit the vendors and talk about their business, find vendors who will definitely help your business. That’s not necessarily everybody in the affiliate partner network, but that’s another podcast. Ask each vendor, what is the ROI on this thing that you’re selling me? You know, use the events to get fired up. But more than that, it’s a great opportunity for you.

Chris (16:12):

To connect with other affiliate owners to go have brunch with them. We host a brunch every year at the Games, to meet up with them, like let’s get four or five of us together to go up into the affiliate area, to ask hard questions, to meet possible partners, to meet possible vendors and connect. So the biggest opportunity, the biggest way that the Games can help your affiliation is by being the place where people connect. It’s that nexus. It’s not really what’s happening in the events themselves, although that’s great for your energy. It’s not whether the events are going to drive more traffic into your gym. It’s the opportunity to connect. And that is often underrated. Especially after the last couple years. We all need to sit down with other box owners, say, what are you doing? What has worked for you? And give them back something in return. So the way that you make the Games season help your affiliate is first, the intramural Open. Second it’s staff retention and energy at the regional events and third it’s connection to other box owners to other partners, and to other providers at the Games. Hope that helps.

Andrew (17:18):

For more from Coop, be sure to subscribe to Two-Brain Radio. Now here’s Chris with the final message.

Chris (17:24):

Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio. If you aren’t in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook, this is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in. And I’m there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.

 

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